The Meaning of Life.

I had an interesting conversation with a girl from my work today. She jokingly got onto the topic of 'What is the meaning of life?' (as we were simultaneously taking some down some decorations from a frightening height, ironically). I proceeded to ask her this question in all seriousness and she didn't have an answer for me. She did, however, ask me the same question. I explained to her that I believe in God and I'm a Christian, and that I'm a Christian in the sense that it affects the way I live my life everyday, I don't just say that. She then went on to say 'I believe in God too, but I just don't do anything about it, like you were saying. I'll do something about it later.' And I responded, 'Like when you're 70?' and she said 'Yep, when I'm on my deathbed.'

I don't remember what I said from then on, but the conversation kind of closed up for some reason. I didn't press into it much more, though now I feel that I should've.

There must be so many people out there who think the same thing as this young lady. They agree that God exists, but they for some reason feel that God is stupid or dumb. The reason I label it like this is because by suggesting that we could live our lives as we please, unfaithful to God the whole way through, in the way that we know best possibly implies that God is oblivious or blinded to our unfaithfulness and will just accept us as the curtain closes. It could be a matter of thinking we understand his unending grace and thereby abusing that, but there is no doubt in my mind that God knows our hearts and he will judge accordingly.

God is not dumb or stupid. He is not oblivious to our rebelliousness and the true state of our hearts. The Bible says that he will judge us on many accounts; in terms of whether we did things for others as we would for him (Matt. 25:31-46), whether we loved God and loved others (Luke 10:25-28), whether we obey his commandments (Matt. 19:16-17), whether we have faith and live it out (John 3:16, 36). These are just some of the things the Bible says that God will judge us on.

Someone once told me a perfect analogy for this common mistake people make in their beliefs about God. Imagine a groom waiting at the altar for his bride. She enters the church, and the groom waits accordingly for her to reach him at the end of the aisle. However, as she floats down the aisle, her eyes are not set on her husband-to-be, but on every other man beside the aisle. She winks at them, flirts with them, allures them; all the while her groom stands watching as she slowly makes her way to him in a distracted manner. She may well get to him at the end, but do you think he didn't see what she was doing? Yes, he loves her unconditionally, but their relationship wouldn't work if one of their hearts was not fully committed. It's like this with us and God. During life we may see him as our ultimate goal, but we couldn't care less about how we get there and how we treat him in the process. Not that God needs us but that we think think we can disregard him as a being who loves, cares, judges, speaks and responds.

We may well get to him at the end of the aisle, but unfortunately, I don't think that would mean much if we were still looking back with no true remorse about rebelling against him from the very outset.

Just some thoughts..